Cybercrime Up in Japan? How Would We Know?

The November 8 edition of the Japan Times reports that the Japanese Ministry of Justice has just issued a new "white paper" on crime for 2005. According to the story, the white paper states, among other things, that cyber crimes "have been growing steadily in the last five years but leaped substantially from 1,884 instances in 2004 to 2,811 in 2005." The white paper also states that this "leap" was attributed to a "surge in Internet fraud through online auctions, from 542 case[s] in 2004 to 1,408 in 2005." Since the article does not explain what the white paper means by an "instance" or "case," it is difficult -- as usual when the media reports on criminal justice statistics -- to know how to interpret these statistics. Posting of the white paper on the Ministry of Justice website might allow researchers and criminal justice professionals readier access to the data, and allow more meaningful analysis.